annavere | Reading

This Saturday, the day after tomorrow, is the 40^th anniversary of the release of the original The Legend of Zelda game. If a US company owned it, something big would be in store for the celebration. The rest of this year would be full of releases and nostalgia and hype, culminating in the live-action movie (2027) or in a not-yet-teased new 3D game, or both. But Nintendo is very much not a US company. And, unlike Pokémon (hitting its 30^th anniversary at the end of this month), ownership of TLOZ is not shared. Nintendo does exactly what it wants with TLOZ, only rarely* pressured by even sales results, much less anything else.

Speculation has been rampant for months. Actual leaks seem to have begun squishing out this week, maybe. I'm lightly ducking them, but at the high level of subject lines and headlines, they sound much like the speculation, though narrowed down to one consensus prediction. No Direct is scheduled. Two days ago, some modest quality-of-life updates released for BOTW and TOTK (which is remarkable, right? BOTW released in 2017!). Saturday is not a prime day for marketing announcements.

We would all love a teaser for an upcoming new game, not only a remake, however much we'd all like a remake (OOT and TP are the big candidates, of course). I think it's too early for an actual release announcement with a date; it's been only three years since TOTK (and two since EOW (Grezzo) and one since HW:AOI (Koei Tecmo)). I think most of us would also like a trailer for the upcoming movie, though an entire year out is a bit early in the hype cycle for that, too. It seems to me that it's not impossible that Nintendo will actually let the TLOZ anniversary pass unremarked, or all but unremarked, and then do something on its own time, perhaps with barely a nod to the anniversary, later in the year, after the Pokémon anniversary hoopla is over.

* At release, the market choked on Wind Waker's "childish" art style. Sales were infamously disappointing. Twilight Princess then followed with more the look and feel of an animated Peter Jackson LOTR movie, to great sales worldwide. However, time has redeemed Wind Waker; today, both fans and experts regard its art as "timeless," transcending the tech of its era.

osprey_archer

As so often happens with nonfiction books, the subtitle of C. S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature is quite misleading. It suggests that the book is full of interesting tidbits about, say, Chaucer, whereas in fact the book is much more focused on the classical authors who shaped the medieval image of the heavens - hence “the discarded image,” largely swept away by later thinkers, but still surviving in odd phrases here and there.

I was particularly fascinated by the chapter about which ancient authors were popular and relatively accessible during the medieval period. For instance, their most direct access to Plato came through a Latin translation of Timaeus, but they had many works by neo-Platonists, and it was through this neo-Platonist filter that they had their own Platonic age of thought. (The neo-Platonists had actually been the last great holdouts against Christianity, so it’s fascinating to see them simply get folded into it here.)

The book also goes into great detail about the Image itself. I won’t try to summarize it all here, but a few bits I found especially interesting:

1. The medieval model was indeed geocentric, but Lewis points out that this does not mean that medieval thinkers considered the Earth especially important. In fact, they considered the Earth a mere infinitesimal dot, the lowest spot in the universe and the ultimate destination for the universe’s refuse. A person standing on Earth was looking up and up and up into infinitely more beautiful, perfect, higher and more important spheres.

2. The medieval thinker also thought the universe was suffused with sunlight and music (the music of the spheres); the idea of space as cold, dark, and scary came about later.

3. The belief in the influence of the planets on earthly life remained strong, and the Church had to exert a great deal of energy against the idea of astrological determinism.

4. There’s also a chapter about the longaevi, the Good Folk, with a fascinating discussion about the different meanings assigned to these beings - meanings so divergent that Spenser could write The Faerie Queen as a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, while at the same time people were sometimes tried for witchcraft on the charge of traffic with the fairy folk. (As Lewis notes, witchcraft trials were far more a Renaissance than a medieval phenomenon.)

Also, book gives insight into certain aspects of Lewis’s own fiction, in particular that bit in That Hideous Strength where Lewis starts talking about the seven genders and then just sort of wanders off in the middle of gender #4. “How can you tell us there are seven genders and then only give us four?” I demanded. Well, now I think that to Lewis (the medievalist) it was perfectly obvious that the seven genders were male, female, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. The other planets weren’t discovered till later and Earth of course doesn’t count on account of being the cesspit of the universe.

And he didn’t spend much time explaining what exactly Jupiter gender was like because, to his steeped-in-medieval-literature mind, this was perfectly obvious. The Jupiter character is “Kingly; but we must think of a King at peace, enthroned, taking his leisure, serene. The Jovial character is cheerful, festive yet temperate, tranquil, magnanimous.” I believe extrapolating this temperament into a gender is Lewis’s innovation, but he could be working off a classical source.

However, sadly, this book does not cast any light on what crimes the star might have committed in order to be banished to an island in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. However, it seems likely these also have an ancient or medieval source, so perhaps someday I will find out!

selenak

In which we get what is clearly supposed to be the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy equivalent of the TNG episode Family - but is it?

( Spoilers want to watch meteor showers as well… )

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: On the train

osprey_archer

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Strange Pictures, by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion. Very scary! Made the mistake of reading it in the evening then felt small and scared and sent SOS texts to friends who soothed me with cat pictures. (There’s nothing particularly graphic in the book, but one of the murder methods just struck me as extra scary.)

As with Uketsu’s other novel Strange Houses, the mystery here didn’t strike me as particularly plausible, but who cares when the atmosphere is so impeccable? Propulsively readable. Zipped through the whole thing in one evening and even though I was scared, I wanted another. Maybe there are more Uketsu translations on deck?

I also read Catherine Coneybeare’s Augustine the African, a biography of St. Augustine which focuses on his position as a provincial from North Africa in the late Roman Empire, and the effect this may have had on his theological thought. I’ve long been interested in the Roman Empire, but most of my nonfiction reading has focused on its earlier days, so it was super interesting to learn more about the crumbling of the empire (even after Alaric sacked Rome, it kept chugging along to an amazing extent), and also look at it all from a provincial angle.

I also enjoyed Coneybeare’s emphasis on Augustine’s social networks, and the way the Christian social networks often cut across lines of class and geography - especially after the sack of Rome, when many wealthy Roman Christians fled to North Africa for safety. And she clearly explained both the Donatist and Arian heresies, which have long puzzled me! I’m still working out the details of the Pelagian heresy (too much works, not enough faith?) but one cannot expect to understand all the heresies all at once.

What I’m Reading Now

William Dean Howells’ My Mark Twain, which starts with a description of Twain bursting into the offices of The Atlantic wearing a sealskin coat with the fur out. This is apparently NOT how you wear a sealskin coat, as later on Howells and Twain went walking through Boston together, Howells suffering and Twain exulting in the stares of all the passersby.

What I Plan to Read Next

We’re coming up on my annual St. Patrick’s Day reading! I’m planning to read Sarah Tolmie’s The Fourth Island (about a magical fourth Island of Aran, I believe) and Eve Bunting’s St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning, illustrated by Jan Brett - one of Brett’s earliest books I believe, so I’ll be curious to compare it with her later illustration style.

brightknightie

I posted the

fkficfest "2026 Pre-Game Survey" yesterday. It's open through February 27. Twelve folks have responded already (including two names new to me) so the ten-day opportunity may be longer than needed! Current writer tally: Six yes, six maybe.

Please do comment there or here if you feel strongly or confusedly about any of the survey questions or game circumstances. As always, I reserve the right to do what I believe will work best for the fest community based on all evidence, not the pre-game poll alone. (And I might need to work around my own obligations.)

As "simple step one" in giving myself an easier time as mod this year, I'm not looking up canon quotations for the admin post subject lines. It's not that it was ever that big a chore -- I have a PDF of the forkni-compiled quotations Dorothy used to build her concordance tool so long ago -- but it had indeed become a chore.

feurioo posting in

tv_talk

Watch on YouTube

Release: March 20

Summary

Detectives Dulcie Collins and Eddie Redcliffe are in Darwin to investigate the death of Eddie’s former policing partner Bushy. However, their plans are soon diverted when a body part is discovered in a remote town called Barra Creek. With the Northern Territory police force focused on a large-scale search for two missing backpackers, Dulcie and a very reluctant Eddie are tasked with identifying the John Doe.

Sticky, sweaty and juggling comprehensive thrush infections, the detectives find themselves embroiled in a world of crocodile-fuelled tourism, overstretched Indigenous rangers, cagey locals, and seven-metre prehistoric predators – all of whom call Barra Creek’s stretch of land, and water, their home. As the humidity builds, and Eddie and Dulcie dig deeper, more questions arise for our duo – not only about the case, but the many secrets that lie beneath the surface of this small town.

senmut

AO3 Link | Anakin's Not So Imaginary Friend (1636 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace [1999], Star Wars: Rebels
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Timey Wimey Stuff, The Force is Weird [Star Wars], Ensemble Cast
Summary:

Ahsoka makes a choice to give up embodiment and become a shoulder angel.

Anakin's Not So Imaginary Friend

"If someone was whispering poison in his ears all those years, shouldn't he have a different point of view?"

The bird and the woman stared each other down, before Morai fluffed all of her feathers, and Fulcrum smiled, winning the debate.

~You will give up your place here/now and all you became. The girl will be different.~

"That is not a drawback. If I do this well, he will make true choices, not be played out in the game as a pawn."

~So certain he did not choose his destruction.~

"Maybe he did, but did he do it with enough knowledge?"

Morai remained silent, and Fulcrum touched the last rune in the circle, imbuing it with all she was, letting existence change.

~How have you survived so long, Skykid?~

The amused, gentle voice that Anakin had been hearing for the last year was actually something to steady him as he came down from the high of winning.

~I do understand that people said I was like you a little better.~

That was almost sobering. Anakin had realized the ghost in his head had lived a life, but come to him as a protector. Already, she had helped him recognize his 'luck' and 'sense of things' was actually the Force, that thing that Jedi had. She was coaching him in how to use it more actively.

She liked Mom, a lot, and she never asked him to do anything he didn't want to do.

When Master Jinn said he'd only been able to buy Anakin's freedom, she was the one with the words.

"If you take me from Mom, with Watto so poor, she's got nothing, and might be sold," he said firmly. "Can't the Jedi do something about that? How can you expect me to learn how to be a Jedi if I worry about her being here, alone, maybe bought by a mean master?"

Master Jinn frowned, considering. "When we get to the ship, I will send a comm to someone in the Temple that I trust, about what happened here. Will that be enough?"

~He will ask a good person. We can make sure it happened, later.~

"Okay, Master Jinn."

Anakin was afraid, even with Master Jinn and Padmé both promising that his Mom would be saved. None of these people — he hadn't even seen some of their species before! — liked him.

~They didn't always like me, either. Yoda doesn't get on the best with anyone but the little kids. Master Windu has some very bad things in the Force hanging on him. Master Plo is grieving a man that was his partner in all ways. Master Mundi has to analyze everything through logic.~

Anakin felt that knowledge, realized that his friend in his head was still with him, still able to give him pieces of information. That… that made things a little better. He drew himself up as tall as he could, considered navigating this as to be like a pod race course with explosives, and focused intently on how they asked their questions.

"Yes, Masters. I am afraid," he said calmly. "My mother is a slave, owned by a man that lost everything in Master Jinn's attempt to get things done. But I can't help her there. I can only trust that people who have the ability handle that, since I was taken from her to live free. It would be fair, after all, to give something back to her with value.

"I may be older than the ones you accept, but I can learn. I like learning. And I do want to help!"

~Oh good job, Skykid. You just needed a little support, but you did that all on your own!~

The absolute joy of being able to help, the exhilaration of taking the droid control ship down mingled and made Anakin feel like he was walking on air when they all landed.

~Just, remember. We survive. That means we must remember those who don't.~

The words were gentle, but laced with a pain that knew loss, and Anakin looked, mentally tallying how many ships had landed against how many he'd seen earlier.

~You lost lots; I can tell. How do you remember?~

~I say their names, when they're close to me. I remember what they did to live, how they lived outside the fighting. When I didn't know them well… I live harder, for the ideas they held strongly.~

~Then… I'll have to ask Captain Olié to tell me about the ones that don't make it back,~ Anakin decided, still up on a pilot's shoulders in their shared joy at living.

Anakin kept his smile on his face, but he was worried. Why, with all the good things happening, did he feel empty inside?

He didn't want his ghost friend to leave him! She had helped him so much!

All through the rest of the events, he kept hoping to hear her, kept wishing for her to give him something to go by when the Jedi elders said he was not a padawan yet, but he would be.

It wasn't until he was in his room that night, with Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi talking so quietly in the main one, that he could feel her again.

~You left me!~ he accused, fear and worry mingling in the words.

~I cannot be present when my enemy is near, apparently,~ she said, all apology and a feeling of being nettled by the restriction.

~Who?~

There was a long pause, but he could still feel her.

~I don't think I can tell you that without putting you in more danger,~ she said, raw honestly in the words, and the feeling of a hug all around him.

~Maybe when I am older, stronger? More able to protect others and myself?~ he asked, having caught worry for the Jedi in those words.

~I think so,~ she said softly.

~Tell me something about you,~ he said, changing tactics, not liking the sadness he could feel in her.

~How about a name? They used to call me Fulcrum.~

~That's an engineering thing! The point you balance on to shift heavy weights!~ Anakin told her, before his quick mind raced ahead. ~The weight of why you are sad, and you want me to be the lever?~

~No, I want you safer,~ Fulcrum said, rejecting the idea that Anakin Skywalker was a tool to be used. ~I want you to make your own choices, but with a little advice that others don't know how to give to you.~

~What makes you sure you do?~

Her presence grew lighter, playful and teasing, at that. ~Because, Skykid, I knew you in a different life. Now rest; we're leaving tomorrow for the Temple.~

He started to protest, but it had been a long day, and now he had a name for his friend.

Anakin's skin was crawling as he came back to the Temple after the meeting that Master Gallia had arranged at the request of the Chancellor. He'd been doing so well in his classes, and Knight Kenobi was actually considering him as a padawan.

But.

He was way too smart, running over who had been at the Naboo celebration versus who had been present in that meeting. The Chancellor had been kind, speaking well of Anakin's daring and skills —

— and Fulcrum had been silent, no longer sitting in his mind. He wondered how long it would take her to come back (she had to come back, she'd promised to be there and keep helping him with his lessons and his temper!) this time.

There was something he could do, as he reached out to lightly tug on Master Gallia's sleeve hem.

"Master, may I speak with you?"

She ushered her friends along, and crouched to be more on a level with the Initiate. "Go ahead, Anakin."

"I don't want to meet with him again." Seeing her begin to muster all the reasons for trying to be their diplomatic gesture, he shook his head firmly, and she held them back. "I am just a kid. I might have done some big things with the Force, but where I am from?

"People with power only reach out to those with skills but no leverage when they want to use them for something. I have a bad feeling about this, and want to focus on my lessons, so I can be a good padawan."

She let her face show her acceptance, and nodded. "Very well. I hope Obi-Wan makes that choice soon, once you have all the basics down, Anakin."

~How do we beat him?~

It was three days past that meeting and Fulcrum had been back in his mind for two of them, when he finally asked, and she could see who he meant.

~Patience, observing everything, fixing as many little things as we can,~ she answered honestly. ~I wish you did not know, but at the same time… now he can't take all you are and push it into his plans of destruction.~

Anakin's lips thinned to tight line of anger, glimpsing the future in the Force, the one she had lived, the one where he hadn't thought of motive before pride.

~I have you, you have me, and we're going to make sure he doesn't win.~

Fulcrum gave him her love, her pride in him making that choice, and settled back to teaching him, going over his lessons, to draw him away from the kindled anger for now.

Later, once he had more training, they could try to push. For now, Fulcrum intended to help Anakin ground in the here and now of learning how to be a Jedi that wasn't so mistrusted, or too far on the outskirts.

That, and his knowledge of who the enemy was, just might set them on a better path for all.

rachelmanija

Excellent dark fantasy about three women trapped in a medieval castle under siege. It reminded me a bit of Tanith Lee - it's very lush and decadent in parts - and a bit of The Everlasting. Fantastic female characters with really interesting relationships. The language is not strictly medieval-accurate but a lot of the characters' mindsets are, which is fun.

All I knew going in was that it was medieval, female-centric, and involved cannibalism. This gave me a completely wrong impression, which was that it was a sort of female-centric medieval Lord of the Flies in which everyone turns on each other under pressure and starts killing and eating each other. This is very nearly the opposite of what it's actually about, though there is some survival-oriented eating of the already-dead.

The three main characters are Phosyne, an ex-nun and mad alchemist with some very unusual pets that even she has no idea what they are; Ser Voyne, a female knight whose rigid loyalty gets tested to hell and back; and Treila, a noblewoman fallen on hard times and desperate to escape. The three of them have deliciously complicated relationships with each other, fully of shifting boundaries, loyalties, trust, sexuality, and love.

At the start, everyone is absolutely desperate. They've been trapped in the castle under siege for six months, the last food will run out in two weeks, and help does not seem to be on the way. Treila is catching rats and plotting her escape via a secret tunnel, but some mysterious connection to Ser Voyne is keeping her from making a break for it. Phosyne has previously enacted a "miracle" to purify the water, and the king is pressuring her to miraculously produce food; unfortunately, she has no idea how she did the first miracle, let alone how to conjure food out of nothing. Ser Voyne, who wants to charge out and fight, has been assigned to stand over Phosyne and make her do a miracle.

And then everything changes.

The setting is a somewhat alternate medieval Europe; it's hard to tell exactly how alternate because we're very tightly in the POV of the three main characters, and we only know what they're directly observing or thinking about. The religion we see focuses on the Constant Lady and her saints. She might be some version of the Virgin Mary, but though the language around her is Christian-derived, there doesn't seem to be a Jesus analogue. The nuns (no priests are ever mentioned) keep bees and give a kind of Communion with honey. Some of them are alchemists and engineers. There is a female knight who is treated differently than the male knights by the king and there's only one of her, but it's not clear whether this is specific to their relationship or whether women are usually not allowed to be knights or whether they are allowed but it's unusual.

This level of uncertainty about the background doesn't feel like the author didn't bother to think it out, but rather adds to the overall themes of the book, which heavily focus on how different people experience/perceive things differently. It also adds to the claustrophobic feeling: everyone is trapped in a very small space and additionally limited by what they can perceive. The magic in the book does have some level of rules, but is generally not well understood or beyond human comprehension. There's a pervasive sense of living in a world that isn't or cannot be understood, but which can only be survived by achieving some level of comprehension.

And that's all you should know before you start. The actual premise doesn't happen until about a fourth of the way into the book, and while it's spoiled in all descriptions I didn't know it and really enjoyed finding out.

Spoilers for the premise. ( Read more... )

Spoilers for later in the book: ( Read more... )

Probably the last third could have been trimmed a bit, but overall this book is fantastic. I was impressed enough that I bought all of Starling's other books for my shop. I previously only had The Luminous Dead, which I'm reading now.

Content notes: Cannibalism. Physical injury/mutilation. Mind control. A dubcon kiss. Extremely vivid descriptions of the physical sensations of hunger and starvation. Phosyne's pets do NOT die!

Feel free to put spoilers for the whole book in comments.

yourlibrarian posting in

tv_talk

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

Have you seen comics or video game adaptations you found well done? What about them worked for you? Or if they didn't, how did the shows fall short?

lirazel

This is totally random, but I've had something on my mind lately and I realized that the people who could most likely answer my questions are...on my flist!

Some context: when I was still a Christian, I spent a lot of time appreciating the tradition of religious sisters and how that was a lifestyle it was possible to pursue. It just really made me feel good to know that there was this long tradition of women who chose to pursue faith and/or education instead of wifehood/motherhood/family/sex. You could step outside of that and you had a society-sanctioned option to become a nun, spend your life in a community of other women, and sometimes pursue an education or the arts. (Obviously I don't want to idealize life in a religious community, which could be abusive or poverty-stricken as the case may be. But so could marriage!)

Judaism is SO different and more family-focused (for understandable reasons), so I've kind of been missing that, especially since I've been thinking a lot about female mystics lately for Ann Lee reasons (though I am NOT mystic in any way at all and in fact am pretty anti-mystic in both my personality and experience, I find it endlessly fascinating). Were there different points or places in Jewish history, say, pre-19th century, in which women could pursue a different kind of life? Or, even if they married, is there a mystic tradition among Jewish women? I have the vaguest ideas about Jewish mysticism, but I only know it in the context of men.

Or is there something similar in Islam? I know there are Buddhist nuns, but I know little of that either.

I've been thinking a lot about the ways that female mystics in Christianity are both honored and seen as operating within a well-established tradition but also always dangerous and threatening to the power structure and the ways in which they kind of teeter between something that the masculine authorities approve of because they can use it (mostly to prove the power of God) and want to tamp down on because it threatens them, and how the women themselves are just concerned about their relationship with God and sometimes other women, and how complicated all that is. It's just really rich, and I've sort of wanted to write some speculative fiction inspired by it, but I want to draw from wider sources than just Christian ones and I don't know where to start!

I want to be clear that I'm looking for women operating within a patriarchal religion. Obviously there have been women religious figures throughout history--priestesses, shamans, etc.--who wielded great power, both religious and otherwise. Lots of that up to the present day in indigenous religions! And they are super interesting! I want to learn more about them at some point! But right now I'm looking for women who are inhabiting that weird place where them devoting their life to a religion with a male power structure is sanctioned by the larger society, but what they do with that might not be. And women whose experience of that religion is distinctly more mystical/untamed/transcendent than most people's. Give me some women who are married to the divine!

osprey_archer

I was cautiously optimistic about this year’s Newbery winner, Renée Watson’s All the Blues in the Sky, because I liked Watson’s earlier book Piecing Me Together. However, these hopes collapsed when I realized that this is yet another example of my least favorite Newbery genre: Books in Verse About Death.

There is probably someone, someone, who could make me enjoy a Book in Verse about Death, but unfortunate Watson is not that person, or at least this book is not that book.

Our heroine is Sage, who recently lost her best friend when she was hit by a drunk driver while walking to Sage’s house for Sage’s birthday. Sage is now part of the grief group at school, where she sits inwardly sneering at the two members who lost people after a long illness (a grandmother to dementia, and a twin sister to leukemia), because THEY don’t know what it’s like to lose someone unexpectedly.

And, you know, technically this is true. But one feels that at some point someone should point out to Sage that she doesn’t know what it’s like to live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death for years, watching a loved one slowly wither away.

And okay fine, Sage’s Aunt Ini does eventually point out that everyone grieves differently and you can’t directly compare grief etc etc. However, there’s a scene where Sage screams at these girls that they don’t understand anything, and I really, really wanted one of them to scream back that they might not understand her grief but at least they’re TRYING, unlike Sage who very obviously doesn’t give a damn about them. Like, her disdain is so obvious that the other members of Grief Group (the ones who also lost people unexpectedly and are therefore acceptable to Sage) comment that Sage doesn’t like the girls whose relatives died long, slow, agonizing deaths, and Sage responds that it’s because they “don’t know how good they had it.”

But of course no one screams back at Sage. Of course when Sage apologizes, everyone accepts it, instead of telling her to stuff her apology where the sun don’t shine, or at least pointing out the fact that she blew up about how the others don’t understand her pain when she hasn’t been trying even slightly to understand theirs.

And then! And then! ( spoilers for the ending )

yourlibrarian

1) Apparently I never mentioned here that my partner and I went to see The Harlem Globetrotters last month. He said he'd always wanted to see them. It turned out to be different from what we expected. ( Read more... )

2) I also tend to work on a lot of jigsaw puzzles in December and January. It's nice to sit by the sunny window and watch TV in the background while working on them. I've now put away the jigsaw board and sold off the puzzles, but Ahsoka and Grogu were a favorite ( Read more... )

3) I was listening to the Mutant Enemy Writer's Room Reunion recorded on March 17, 2015. Over 10 years ago now, but at the time it was already a decade on from the ending of all the Mutant Enemy shows. It was a really interesting listen, in terms of how those shows were written vs. the writers' experiences on other shows (especially broadcast network shows). But it also amazed me how, while rewrites were apparently rare, it was also not at all unusual that scripts were unfinished even as episodes were being filmed. ( Read more... )

4) In recent months I've been listening to a radio show from the 50s and 60s that does a variety of non-rock/pop tunes, as opposed to stuff like mambos, sambas, novelty songs, and other stuff that doesn't tend to make oldies' playlists. Sometimes they have TV theme songs in there too. Not sure I'd heard the Route 66 theme before, but the version I was listening to sounded like The Simpsons theme in that the main repeated phrase was similar. Made me eyebrow raise a little since it's one of the most profitable show themes ever written.

5) The recent Fansplaining article The Success of Heated Rivalry Should Not Be a Surprise contains other surprises. For one, the author is bewildered by most articles on the show covering (for the 1 millionth time) the "women interested in gay sex" aspect, and then also why there are so many more connections to Asian BL fandoms rather than more close-to-home slash fandoms including RPF fandoms. ( Read more... )

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rachelmanija

Five high school friends go on a camping trip and find a mysterious staircase in the woods. One of them climbs it and vanishes. Twenty years later, the staircase reappears, and they go to face it again.

I loved this premise and the cover. The staircase leading nowhere is spooky and beautiful, a weird melding of nature and civilization, so I was hoping for something that matched that vibe, like Annihilation or Revelator.

That was absolutely not what I got. The Staicase in the Woods is the misbegotten mutant child of It, King Sorrow, and Tumblr-speak. Every single character is insufferable. The teenagers are boring, and the adults are all the worst people you meet at parties. There are four men and one woman/nonbinary person, and she/they reads exactly like what MAGA thinks liberal women/trans people are like -- AuHD, blue hair, Tumblr-speak, angry, preachy, kinky sex etc. She/they says "My pronouns are she/them," then is only ever referred to as she and a woman. The staircase itself is barely in the story, where it leads is a letdown, and the ending combines the worst elements of being dumb and unresolved.

I got partway in and then skimmed because I was curious about the staircase and the vanished kid.

Angry spoilers for the whole book.

( Read more... )

earthspirits posting in

our_souls_are_made_of

An Au tale of darkness and hope - and also a homage to Geraldine Fitzgerald, who portrayed Isabella in the 1939 film.

Fandom: Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë's 1847 Novel
Title: The Courage of a Woman
Characters: Isabella Linton, Heathcliff, Joseph, Catherine Earnshaw + Original Character
Relationships: Isabella / Heathcliff - Catherine / Heathcliff
Rating: Mature
Trigger Warnings: Abusive situation, unhappy marriage, references to past violence, references to past physical and psychological abuse, brief veiled reference to past animal abuse + threats of violence and some strong language.
Complete: 1/1
Word Count: 1,784
Summary: Isabella Linton has finally had enough.

Notes:

- Some spoilers for the novel and for the 1939 and 1992 films.

- Isabella in my tale is based on Geraldine Fitzgerald, as she appeared in the 1939 film. Heathcliff is based on Ralph Fiennes, as he appeared in the 1992 film.

Link: archiveofourown.org/works/79610331

osprey_archer

Recently,

littlerhymes sent me the Guardian’s poll for Australia’s Best Picture Books. As I am nothing if not suggestible, at least where picture books are concerned, of course I couldn’t help reading a few.

Magic Beach, written and illustrated by Alison Lester, which alternates scenes of children playing at the beach with their corresponding imaginary adventures: they build a sandcastle, then imagine charging across the moat to defeat a fiery dragon, etc. The style of the illustrations doesn’t particularly appeal to me, but the conceit is charming, and I did like the kid who has a hat brim that looks like the inside of a watermelon. I’d love to have that hat too.

Possum Magic, by Mem Fox, illustrated by Julie Vivas. Possibly THE most Australian experience of my life, up to and including the time I actually visited Australia. A magic possum and her granddaughter tour the major cities of Australia, eating classic Australian foods like Vegemite sandwiches and lamingtons along the way.

Where the Forest Meets the Sea, written and illustrated by Jeannie Baker. A story about a boy and his father boating over for a picnic on the beach of the Daintree rainforest in Queensland, with absolutely gorgeous collage illustrations. Thrilling to look at and also thrilling to try to figure out what materials Baker used to construct the images.

Edward the Emu, by Sheena Knowles, illustrated by Rod Clement. I picked this one because of the cover, which features a grumpy emu lying flat on the ground. Who among us has not felt like that some days? Edward the emu is tired of being an emu, so he pops over to visit the seals, the lions, the snakes, etc., until he overhears someone saying that the emu is their favorite exhibit in the zoo. Well well WELL. That puts being an emu in a new light!

Who Sank the Boat?, written and illustrated by Pamela Allen. Recommended by

littlerhymes as a childhood favorite, and I could absolutely see a child requesting this story over and over and over and over and over and squealing with glee at the ending every time. (A most unexpected character sinks the boat.) Might lend this one to my mother to read to my niece.

A delightful exploration! I wish to continue my meander through classic Australian children’s books. Any recommendations?

raine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

rhi

I'm prioritizing getting enough sleep first, then eating right, then exercise. And, weirdly enough, I am starting to get more energy to catch up on backlogged house projects, and writing, and chatting with friends. Funny how that might work.

And for anyone I haven't mentioned it to, if you're AFAB and interested in fitness, you may be interested in Roar (if you're pre-menopausal) or Next Level (if you're almost done/done with periods) by Dr Stacy Sims. I'm finding the advice useful. Not all of it, obviously, seeing as I'm not an extreme athlete. I don't do triathlons, say. But do I hit the gym three or four times a week? Yup. So.

Anyway, my goals are to get up to twice the time I can currently manage on an elliptical (so, long enough to 'run' a 5 K) and to finish Deadfall, damn it. After that, the Numb3rs monstrosity. (Length, more than subject matter. It's not tree horror, okay?) And in and through, other short stuff, I guess, but probably the next things will be Deadfall chapters until I'm done.

(Someone help me remember: I have a Night in the Lonesome October piece to finish, and also the Leverage/X-men piece that's currently at 6 pages and going well.)

Current Mood: thoughtful

senmut

10trueloves - 5/10 written

Random Plot Bunnies in Progress

~ Fulcrum and Rex time travel to before Anakin runs to Mace. - NEEDS CANON REVIEW
~ Sequel to Retrieval - 93 WORDS
~ An Atin universe that is more like The Second Clone War or Mine, All of Them - 23 WORDS

Potential Bunnies Pending Further Bouncing

~ Rachel and Joe meet with BOTH finally aware in Closing Up Shop
~ Drizzt's fallout/Vierna's reactions in the Divining Destiny universe

Finished

~ Ahsoka the Daughter whispering guidance through time in Anakin's head. Starting in ~~AotC~~ TPM. Includes: Okay no wonder some said I was just like you (her reaction to the reckless deal in TPM) / Hey Skykid, what's a guy with all the power thinking to make a point of having time for you? (Comics of the Padawan years) / Oh kriff he's so young (first meeting of Anakin and Rex) / I am SO shiny (Ahsoka arriving) - READY TO POST

annavere posting in

our_souls_are_made_of

For those interested, I wanted to gather the four adaptations I have located on YT. These are unofficial uploads, and I haven't watched all of them yet (I am waiting to reach the second generation in my reading before I start digging into any of the adaptations), but I did skim through to make sure picture and sound quality seemed reasonable.

1958

A TV movie made for DuPont Show of the Month on CBS, starring Richard Burton and Rosemary Harris, directed by Daniel Petrie. This one I have seen! It very much takes inspiration from the William Wyler film, only adapting the first half of the story. Considered lost until 2019.

Watch on YouTube

1967

A BBC miniseries, starring Ian McShane and Angela Scoular, directed by Peter Sasdy. Broadcast in color and a victim of the BBC's mania for wiping master tapes, it is now only available in a B&W copy which escaped destruction. Contains the second generation.

Watch on YouTube

1970

Made by the British branch of American International Pictures, this film stars Timothy Dalton and Anna Calder-Marshall, and is directed by Robert Fuest. It (again) only adapts the first generation, and apparently took notable liberties beyond that.

Watch on YouTube

1998

A television film for ITV starring Robert Cavanah and Orla Brady, directed by David Skynner. This one includes the second generation.

Watch on YouTube

Have you seen any of these?

senmut

Welcome to the fills I made for 3SF this year. Much abuse of grammar, as I hold to the THREE sentence part faithfully.

Fandoms: Wheel of Time (TV), Miami Vice, The Old Guard, Three's Company, Black Sails, Uncle Buck, The Peanuts, Star Wars: TCW (2), Star Wars: ST, Transformers, Detroit: Become Human, Leverage, Earth's Children (2), Gilligan's Island/Fantasy Island, The X-Files

( 17 grammar abuses )

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brightknightie - The 40th anniversay of The Legend of Zelda is this weekend
osprey_archer - Book Review: The Discarded Image
selenak - Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1.07
osprey_archer - Wednesday Reading Meme
brightknightie - FKFicFest 2026 pre-game survey is open through Feb 27
feurioo in tv_talk - Deadloch S2 Trailer
senmut - SW:PT/R fic
rachelmanija - The Starving Saints, by Caitlin Starling
yourlibrarian in tv_talk - TV Tuesday: New Look
lirazel - (no subject)
osprey_archer - Book Review: All the Blues in the Sky
yourlibrarian - Of Shows, Puzzles and Meta
rachelmanija - The Staircase in the Woods, by Chuck Wendig
earthspirits in our_souls_are_made_of - The Courage of a Woman - Mature AU Tale Inspired by Emily Brontë's Novel Wuthering Heights
osprey_archer - Picture Book Monday: Australian Picture Books
raine - FIC: Conditions of Staying (HL, F/M, Teen)
rhi - Funny how that might work...
senmut - Projects and Bunnies
annavere in our_souls_are_made_of - Vintage Wuthering Heights uploads on YouTube!
senmut - 3SF 2026

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The 40th anniversay of The Legend of Zelda is this weekend

Book Review: The Discarded Image

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1.07

Wednesday Reading Meme

FKFicFest 2026 pre-game survey is open through Feb 27

Deadloch S2 Trailer

SW:PT/R fic

The Starving Saints, by Caitlin Starling

TV Tuesday: New Look

(no subject)

Book Review: All the Blues in the Sky

Of Shows, Puzzles and Meta

The Staircase in the Woods, by Chuck Wendig

The Courage of a Woman - Mature AU Tale Inspired by Emily Brontë's Novel Wuthering Heights

Picture Book Monday: Australian Picture Books

FIC: Conditions of Staying (HL, F/M, Teen)

Funny how that might work...

Projects and Bunnies

Vintage Wuthering Heights uploads on YouTube!

3SF 2026

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